BIG Partnership

Background

The Big Partnership [1] is one of the UK's largest PR firms. According to the 'PR Week' league table it ranks 2nd in Scotland and top 5 for the UK outside London. Turnover for 2005 exceeded £5m. (source: Big Partnership website [2])

Associates

Catchline Communications [3] is a sister company of The Big Partnership

Function

This firm provides a range of PR services to clients including international consumer campaigns, crisis and reputation management, speech writing and media training.

People

Formed in 2000 by Alex Barr, Graham Isdale and Neil Gibson. The North of Scotland operation is headed by company director Zoe Corsi. Over 80 employees are are based in Big Partnership's Glasgow H.Q. In Scotland there are also offices in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness.

Clients

Big Partnership's clients include:

• ScottishPower [4]

ScottishPower featured at 6th place in the Scottish Environment Protection Agency's (SEPA) 'roll of shame' for 'failing pollution assessments' and having 'one of the worst pollution records in Scotland'. Source: Sunday Herald, 24 July 2005)

• De Vere [5]
• Deloitte [6]
• Coors [7]
• Dundas and Wilson (Scotland’s largest law firm) [8]
• Celtic Football Club [9]
• Aberdeen Football Club [10]
• Scottish Rugby (formerly SRU) [11]
• HayGroup [12]
• British Energy [13]
• Scottish Enterprise [14]
• Scottish Executive [15]

Spent £1.3m on information campaigns in 18 months to Feb 2006. The money was spent on just 4 firms including Consolidated Communications(£600,808 which was the greatest recipient of spending. £193,845 was paid to The Big Partnership for PR services. Sources: Aberdeen Press and Journal, 17th Feb 2006 and The Scotsman 18 Feb 2006.

• learndirect scotland [16]

• National Semiconductor [17]

In 2004, Helen Clark died from Cancer which her husband 'Henry believes developed as a result of her job at the National Semiconductor plant in Greenock'. 'Helen Clark spent six years working in production at National Semiconductor, operating a machine baking compounds on to silicon wafers using arsine gas, which contains arsenic.' (The Herald, 27 December 2005).

• Aberdeen Asset Management [18]
• Clydeport [19]

The BIG partnership has represented media interests of Clydeport since August 2000. This includes unveiling the master plan of the £500million Glasgow Harbour project.

External Links

• ^ Rob Edwards,Sunday Herald, 25th July 2005 (article not available online)

• ^ Emma Seith 'Work killed my wife'; New research shows workplace-related cancers kill four times as many people as official figures show. Why is safety so lax?, Emma Seith, The Herald, 27 December 2005